Elven Legacy: Siege is the second of the planned trilogy of expansions for the turn based strategy game, Elven Legacy, published by Paradox Interactive. Once more, conflict abounds amongst the various races, and your strategic mind will be pushed to the limits.

This expansion is set several months after the conclusion of Ranger. Lord Saggitel and his outcast elves have, once again, crossed the borders into the realms of man and opened up a whole can of worms. Taking charge of one of the heroes and their huge armies, the player will follow this story through to its conclusion and, along the way, participate in some truly epic battles, including sieges in some of the lands most impressive cities.

This expansion includes 19 new missions to play through and 3 new heroes. They are Sir Karel, Inquisitor Morcius and Captain Adrian. There is even a bonus mission that can be played after achieving gold ranking, but this is no mean feat.

Nothing has really changed, gameplay wise, in this new expansion. Seasoned players will be able to jump right in and enjoy the splendor of the new missions. One important adjustment is to the difficulty levels. This time around, the missions are harder. This will no doubt please all of the die hard Elven Legacy fans out there, but for casual players who found the base game challenging, then were pleased at the lowering of complexity in Ranger, this expansion will be straight back into head melting gameplay. Also, Paradox Interactive have combined the missions in such a way that your actions in one mission can directly affect subsequent missions. This makes the game even harder, as a small mistake in one mission can effectively cause failure a few missions down the line.

The graphics and sound are unchanged also, although special mention should be given to the cities that can be seen in some of the missions. These cities look spectacular and certainly add to the enjoyment of these missions. There are also a number of new environments in this expansion, that break the monotony of the usual greenery.

However, this is an expansion, not a sequel, so you would not expect much to change on the gameplay and graphics front. What you do expect is a host of new missions and a nice new story to play through. Paradox does not disappoint on either of these respects. The 19 new missions and the three new heroes add more to the main game, and the storyline that the player gets to experience is, as expected, great. Following on from Ranger, introducing new characters and filling out the Elven Legacy mythology, Siege is a great expansion.

Perhaps not as good as Ranger, Siege offers players the chance to continue their Elven Legacy journey and, despite the sharp difficulty rise, should be a must have for any fans of the Elven Legacy game. The final part of the expansion trilogy is due out soon, and I look forward to seeing what it has to offer.